Gionee, the Chinese handset manufacturer, is looking at a market share of 3-4 per cent in the ₹1 lakh crore Indian mobile handset market.

The company, which sold 10 lakh pieces last year, is targeting to sell five million pieces in the second year of its operations.

It sells phones in the range of ₹1,750 to ₹30,000. Of the 17 phones it sells, five are feature (basic) phones, while the remaining 12 are smartphones.

“We are not worried by the competition from the multinational brands and the home-grown firms. We are positioning our product somewhere between the two categories. Our view of the market is like this. About 60 per cent of the market is owned by the multinational brands, with the rest being fought by the local brands,” Arvind R Vohra, Director of Syntech Technology Private Ltd, the overseas arm of Gionee, told Business Line .

“This break-up of the market would stay as the brand conscious 60 per cent buyers won’t go for local brands and those using local brands would by and large stay there. We are positioning our products to attract both the segments,” Arvind Vohra said.

To strike a chord with Indian consumers, the firm will soon launch phones with support to several Indian languages, including Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Punjabi.

Vohra and his family owns 26 per cent in the India operations.

More stores The company is planning to open 250 branded stores and 2,500 shop-in-shop this year. It is also planning to increase the number of service centres to 750 from 500 this year.

The 12-year-old handset maker sells over 2.3 crore devices annually globally and 10th biggest smartphone brand by market share. It has a production capacity of four crore units a year.

Vohra said India’s 3G connections surpass 2G connections by 2017, indicating a significant growth in smartphone usage.

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